Silence is Golden
by Zellarest
Summary: After James is murdered, Lily falls apart. She escapes to alcohol and pushes everyone away. Even Lysander. So when Lily disappears, Lysander finds her at the Quidditch Pitch in considerable disarray. They have a talk, and it seems that sometimes, silence really is golden. / Rated T for alcohol abuse and suggestions of self-harm. Lily/Lysander.


Written for the Book Quotes Boot Camp using the quote, "Without suffering, there'd be no compassion." —A Walk To Remember.

Written for the Quidditch League using the prompts: Therapy by All Time Low, "Here's to alcohol, the rose colored glasses of life." ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned, and too short.

Team: Chudley Cannons

Position: Chaser 3

Words: 2544 words without AN

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The cold air claws at her skin and turns it red and raw. Ice crunches under her feet. Flecks of snow catch in her hair and melt against her face, leaving it wet and even colder.

Lily remembers her 'escape' like each one of the thin scars scrawled along her arms. Nobody paid the _unfortunate girl_ a second of their precious time when she walked out the great bronze doors. Not even the teachers, who had grown so tired of her _belligerent behaviour_ they practically acted as though she didn't exist. Oh, how she wished it were so.

In her mind she heard their whispers, echoing off her skull like voices off mountaintops. With their scalding tones that scratch at her scarred heart like savage wolves on a wounded prey, they call her _pathetically fragile_ and tell of how _mentally unstable _she has become. Just when she begins to stop listening, they chat about how likely it is that _she'll kill herself any day now_ and that _she's tried before, hasn't she?_ Them and she both hoped that _maybe this time it will actually work _and _no one will be there to stop her_.

When Lily digs her fingers into the marred flesh of her forearm, the voices dissipate until disappearing completely. Her head pounds until she feels lightheaded and her chest stings intensely for a moment, then two more. Lily stands there, in the freezing winds that attack her mercilessly, for an immeasurable amount of time until she releases her arm and moves along.

Small indents where she dug into her flesh make themselves noticed. Lily grits her teeth and keeps moving.

When the door of the pub swings open, Lily meets the steely eyes of the bartender. Vividly she recalls the hearty conversations they held in the past and the way they both grinned as if nothing but a few butterbeers and a good laugh could solve any problem. Now, only a stare as cold as the outside greets her. No grin makes its way onto the old man's lips as it used to.

He slides the poison across the counter without a word. The only communication they share is the tight squeeze he gives her hand when it wraps around the bottle's neck.

The wind hits her like a punch to the gut. For a few seconds Lily is left breathless while it claws at her skin and fills her ears with a hollow roar. When she finally moves forward, the snow crunches under her feet and the wind lessens.

While her feet guide her onward, she doesn't know if she wants to visit the place so similar to the one in her nightmares. Someplace where she couldn't swallow and have it all vanish— the pain, the reminders, _everything_— or push too hard and have it all melt away like it did before.

But on she walks and her mind, however broken and full of memories long locked away, leads her there.

.

Lysander searches the very nooks and crannies of the stubborn girl's hiding place. Without thinking about it too much, he even searches the Forbidden section. The place smells of what he can only think of as evil; dark and damp with a heavy feel to the air that weighs down his lungs. With long, quick strides he exits the unsettling area and looks hopelessly around the library.

Though it glows with a yellowish light, like someone has sprinked what Muggles call pixie dust all over the polished wood and dusty spines, the library doesn't seem to hold any answers for him. Neither had its hawk-like guardian, though he still searched.

Then the answer is standing right in front of him. Slowly, it leans closer and whispers into his ear, "She always was the type to drown herself in her sorrows."

Then Lysander is running down the corridors, with his heart racing nearly as fast as his legs move. It pounds in his ears, overwhelms his mind, and stings painfully in his chest. As soon as he steps out into the biting air it as if his blood has frozen over. The snow covers the courtyard with its blinding whiteness. Not one soul lingers in the courtyard, but small footprints are littered across the snow.

"Lily," Lysander whispers hoarsely. His breath swirls in the air, a frosty mist.

Lysander follows the shallow prints to the bridge, where they stop. With a deep breath— _in and out, just like Madam Pomfrey said,_ he tells himself— he plows on.

Lysander imagines Lily having walked where he does. Each step across the stone causes a dull tap-tap. Flakes of white are caught in a wind and catch on rouge locks of fiery red. Her breath tumbles past her rosy red lips, which are turning slightly blue and cracking in the cold, in a fine mist of condensation. The freckled cheeks are pink and raw from the biting cold. Her hazel orbs roam across the environment swiftly, analyzing each aspect.

The thought of Lily traveling alone pushes him forward. The wind howls like a wounded animal and pushes against his weight with a force almost equal to it. Even the tallest trees sway around him.

It is minutes before Lysander finds himself in the threshold of the stadium. The seats rise to great heights around him. A deep inhale alerts him to the freshly mowed grass, which holds the familiar petrichor from a rain's past. At this time of night, the only thing that can be heard is the wind whistling through the trees. The eerie silence fills the air and soon makes every breath heavy and lackluster— _in and out_, he finds himself repeating.

The very silence suffocates him.

The only thing that cripples Lysander more than the unsettling silence is the fact that Lily is nowhere to be seen.

The answer dances just out of reach. He imagines it laughing at him with a wretched, cackling laugh.

"Where are you..." he breathes hopelessly.

.

"Lumos," she croaks.

The wand illuminates a small portion of the area around her. With a sigh, Lily slides down on to the cold ground.

In the light the wand throws off, Lily takes note of the way the condensed breath tumbles past her lips; curling and twisting in a finely condensed mist like a writhing snake until it swiftly dissipates.

When she tips back the bottle, the stuff slides down her throat like liquidized fire. A burning sensation is left in its wake. It spreads from the tip of her tongue to the top of her head, all the way down to her toes, and back. The shivers come in waves, stemming from both pain and pleasure.

The bitter laugh comes out her mouth ragged and irregularly pitched, like a crow's cackle.

The laugh dies and Lily finds herself invariably alone. Darkness creeps at the edges of the light pulsing and flickering as a result of her shoddy spellwork. The cold seeps through her clothes and through her skin, chilling Lily right down to the bone.

In this set of circumstances, Lily would just run into the warm, consoling arms of the nearest relative. Merlin knows I have enough of them, she thinks.

But the night practically laughs at her naivety. No one is coming to coddle her this time, or any time.

Lily Luna Potter is alone.

.

Lysander runs his hand along one of the arched, hickory pillars that hold up the stands. It is slick with ice and chills him instantly to the bone. The pits of sand around the grassy, oval-shaped field are now covered with a thick layer of snow that doesn't budge underfoot. It is hard and unyielding, like the wind against his face.

"_Don't talk to me!_"

The voice rings in his ears, but when Lysander looks around, no one is there. The wind howls and the ground crunches, but that is all. Nothing moves, not even the trees. Nothing does.

Then the voice shrieks, "_I don't want to see you!_"

The way it twists the final word reminds him of a curse. His whole head pounds and the frozen world around him spins. Or maybe Lysander is falling.

"_Why do you even care?_"

The next thing Lysander knows, his vision swims and the ground scrapes against his hands. He yelps and falls onto his side. The next words are like a knife in his gut, twisting and digging deeper until they meet bone.

"_You are nothing to me._"

These words aren't just figments of his broken, twisted mind. Every last one fell from the lips of the girl with wild carmine locks and wide eyes. Lily, who was out here somewhere, had found him first.

.

With trembling hands, Lily clasps her fingers around the neck and tips the bottle back. The ground crunches and her body aches. Her legs tremble so that both her knees knock together violently.

"To alcohol, the rose colored glasses of life," she murmurs to the wind.

At her words, she has begun to near one of the observing towers. The fabric is adorned with snakes in alternating colors of silver and green.

"Home sweet home," she remarks ironically.

With a sigh, she slips past the whipping fabric before collapsing.

.

Lysander walks along the wall of the stadium at a crawl. He stumbles and falls through a hole in the fabric.

He meets the eyes of one shocked Lily.

.

The fabric surrounding the tower flaps in the wind. Sometimes it lets in a considerably large gust of air that whips around them and shatters their layer of warmth. Both Lysander and Lily stand with their arms held around their frames, teeth chattering slightly. Lily makes a noticeable effort to stand a ways away from him. She is so close to the exit that Lysander is nagged by the idea of her making a run for it. In the minutes that pass in complete silence, he yearns to give her his jacket and hold her as close as he can to shield her from the bitter cold.

Once, he does make the offer of giving her his jacket, but she refuses.

"Doesn't it... doesn't it hurt?" he asks carefully.

"Yes," she croaks. "Everything reminds me of... him. Is that what you want to hear?"

Lysander stumbles, caught off guard by her bluntness. "N—no, I..."

"Forget it," she spits.

The empty bottle sits on it's side in the white mush. Though the label is smudged and hardly legible, Lysander knows that the bottle had been full with the burning substance known only in the wizarding world. Firewhiskey.

"I thought you left that be," he comments and points to the wayward bottle.

Lily grimaces as though she had seen this coming, like a hurricane in the distance. "It helps," she explains shortly. "The pain makes it all go away. Eventually everything becomes... numb. Fuzzy. It helps me forget."

Lysander throws her a hard glare. "This isn't the way he would have wanted it to be."

Lily returns the gesture with her own fiery stare, balling her hands into fists to keep herself from wrapping them. "Who gives a damn about what he wanted anymore? He's dead. Gone. That bastard murdered him over a goddamn _quidditch match_."

"The world doesn't award preferential treatment to anyone. Not even to those who deserve it."

"Don't. Stop... talking," she orders, shutting her eyes tight.

"James isn't gone, Lily. He lives on in you—"

"Don't spout that codswallop about people living on in memories to me. Don't you think I already know that? I'm haunted by my own every day!" she yells, her arms held stock-straight at her sides.

"This isn't the answer!" he growls.

Lily snorts bitterly. "How do you know? You don't know me. You never did."

"You know what? Maybe I don't. I sure as hell never will. But reducing yourself to shit doesn't solve any of your problems, you know."

She looks away and whispers, "But it does make them go away for a little. That makes everything worth it."

"I don't think so," he tells her while shaking his head.

"I don't care what you _think_. You don't know me, remember?"

"But James knew you."

"SHUT UP. Just _shut up_! Don't you ever talk as if you knew him. I didn't even know him," she yells. "Everything. Everything reminds me of him. My mother, who is a human fire hose every time I see her, my father, who can't stop grieving long enough to see that everyone else is suffering too, my brother, who up and left to the other side of the world just to avoid this... even _you_."

"Me? What did I ever have to do with him?"

"He was always a joker, the prick. Could never resist giving everyone a good laugh, even if it meant detention with Mathiga for a month. Took to the family legacy, I suppose." Lily looks to him. Lysander can see the pain that every word spoken about him causes. But behind it, he can see the relief it is bringing her as well. She continues in a hardly composed voice, "You're just the opposite. Reserved, a bit too modest. You'll deflect the laughter directed at you, at best. And you remind me of him every day. I can't think of you without thinking about him. Can you _imagine_?"

"Being in love with someone and having them constantly remind you of someone who left?" Lysander frowns. "No."

Lily stares at him for a moment. "Your dad... he never came back."

It isn't a question, but Lysander still answers. "Yes, he left to Sweden and never came home. My mother... never recovered fully."

Lily nods and looks away. "I just... people aren't always reliable, I guess," she breathes.

Lysander watches the way she clutches at her arms as if she's about to jump off the Astronomy Tower. Her eyes dart from left to right, focusing on things he can't see. The lavender swipes underneath her hazel orbs bother him— immensely. The pupils of her eyes are tiny, dilated in the light of the moon. Her cheeks are as pink as he imagined them to be, with her nose a harsh, rosy red. She looks, in short, like a haunted Roudolph.

Lysander shoots her a hard glare. "And whiskey is?" he asks sharply.

A frown tugs at the corners of her lips. "Sometimes," she replies with an uncertain tone to her voice.

The fabric falls still and a thick silence settles in the air.

"Do you ever wish that maybe... maybe it never happened?"

"Every day," she whispers. "I just wish I had gotten more time. To go to a quidditch match and have a couple butterbeers. To say that he's a right prat and that I love him. The time I got was too short."

Slowly, Lily turns to him and walks straight into him. It takes him a second to realize that her arms are wrapped around his waist and her face is buried into his chest, soaking his jacket. That she is hugging him. Lysander puts his arms around her without a single word passing his lips.

Because sometimes, silence speaks louder than words.


End file.
